Ultrasound results and my feelings on it

I am sure most of you know about this by now, because I am pretty my readership is mostly family, and if you aren't family, we are probably friends on facebook, but we had our ultrasound last week. It was actually supposed to be on May 4th but my ob/gyn office called me that morning because their tech called in "injured" and they had to reschedule their appointments. The next opening they had in their office was 4 weeks later! 4 weeks, they seriously wanted me to wait a whole 'nother month to find out what that little baby is, I think not! So they got me a referral to Imaging at Renown Hospital for the following Wednesday at 8:15 in the morning with an appointment arrival time of 7:45! I am so not a morning person and I couldn't take Simon to the appointment so had to get him to Cindy's before that. Thank goodness I have good family, Mel and Jared came and got Simon on their way to drop off Phin, and took him too, so luckily I didn't have to get up even earlier and drop him off in Spanish Springs before my appointment.

So ultrasound day, I get to appointment a few minutes late (of course, we are late to everything) and they are doing remodelling on the floor where my appointment was, so where I had to go to check in wasn't even on the same floor as the ultrasound itself. Steve was supposed to get off at 8, and rushed over to my appointment, and because of the remodelling had to go on a bit of a wild goose chase to find someone who could take him to where I was, he got there a few minutes after the tech had already started checking things out.
The baby cooperated pretty well for the appointment. Part way through it flipped over though and had it's back facing out, so I commented that it would make it harder to tell what the sex was, then the tech told us he knew already, as soon as he started he did a quick scan over my whole uterus and saw right away what the sex was. He also said he wasn't going to tell us unless he was 100% sure of what it was, if it wasn't definite he didn't want to show us and then be wrong. He was a funny guy though, he joked how bad did we want to know the sex and how much cash we had on us to find out, then proceeded to show us our little boy! Very much a boy, parts were very prominent and definite, no mistaking what they were. The tech did lots of measuring and scanning, making sure things were symmetrical and where they should be, we got to see all 4 chambers of the heart working like they should, cute tiny little toes and hand waving around, it was really cool.
But when he told us boy, Steve and I were both kinda like "huh, really, a boy?" We were both pretty sure it was going to be a girl or at least maybe we were convinced because we wanted one so bad, and so did all of our family, we all thought it was going to be a girl, so boy came as a shock and is taking me some time to adjust to, but I am almost there now. Another boy will be a lot of fun, I love my Simon and they can be buddies and share a room, and no teenage girl drama right? Right? I'll be okay with another boy. I just don't get to go out and buy all those cute girl clothes, no pink and purple, and flowers and ribbons and bows, no cute dresses and tutus. But I guess that also means I don't have to learn to do girl hair and fight with her about combing her hair and girly attitude. I also don't get to spend tons of money to buy all the stuff I had planned for her room, we have a lot of cute stuff at my work that I kept saying, I'm going to buy that for my daughters room, it was going to be cute. Shabby chic owls, and birds, and outdoorsy animal kinds of stuff. Birdcages and antiqued furniture, and a bit Victorian feeling, oh Lucy's room was going to be so cute! I will survive, it was just a little sad at first, but I am already almost over it. Almost.


P.S.- new post below, my super duper yummy awesome fiber-filled waffles.

Kari's Awesome Waffles Recipe

Lately, I have been trying to eat healthy and try new recipes and all that kind of stuff. And with Steve's new iPhone and the crashing of our computers, I have gotten to put new apps on his phone. One of my favorites is Spark recipes (which has a website too), and it is mostly healthy recipes. I used two recipes that I liked to make my own recipe and then made some other adjustments too. The ones I used were Grandma's Awful Waffles and Honey Flaxseed Whole Wheat Applesauce Waffles. I liked the base of the Grandma ones, but I also liked the idea of adding in Flaxseed meal for some extra fiber, and applesauce instead of using butter or oil. And then I added some personal things like extra cinnamon and vanilla! The first time I made it I only measured some things, and then afterwards decided to write a recipe for it, so the next time I made them I followed my recipe amounts exactly to make sure it tasted alright and that my guesses for amounts were okay. Such as the first time after my first waffle I decided it needed sugar, so I just threw in a handful of sugar, not really a good measurement for telling other people how to make it. Anyways, we love it, they are very filling, and they are going to my standard waffle recipe, they aren't boring like other waffles. Here is my recipe.

Kari's Awesome Waffles
Yield 7 waffles (7 being both sides of the waffle iron, or 14 square ones if you want to count it that way)

2 cups whole wheat flour (or any combo of flour you have, last time I ran out of whole wheat and had to use white)
3 tsp baking powder
1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup applesauce
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup blueberries
1 cup chopped walnuts

Mix all dry ingredients (except nuts), make a well in the middle for wet ones to go into. In seperate bowl beat eggs, add milk. Pour into well in dry ingredients and mix well. Stir until smooth, also add the applesauce now. Stir in blueberries and walnuts. Use with waffle iron or as pancakes.

When I made these I used the Del Monte fruit Naturals blueberries that are in little plastic containers in juice in the salad section at the grocery store. I saved the juice from them and used it with mapleine to make fruit syrup. Just use the juice to replace the water in the recipe and follow the direction on the box for the quick method. It was really yummy though I was scared to taste it at first because it smelled like cough syrup!
Another note- it may sound like a lot of cinnamon and vanilla, but we love both of these in our family, and the cinnamon gives it some great flavor, if you are scared to use that much, then don't, you are the one eating, it needs to be to your liking too!

Getting bigger every day

So for some strange reason, I have been really putting off blogging or posting about this on facebook. Why? I'm not really sure, but for some reason I am just being really weird about announcing to people that I am pregnant. We went to the doctor today and got to hear the heartbeat. I had another appointment a month ago and they did an ultrasound and we got to see the little baby in there waving it's arms around, it was so cool. I think maybe it still hasn't sunk in for me. I mean its obvious, I am very much showing, I throw up every morning if I wake up before 10, I've seen an ultrasound and now heard the heartbeat, so why I have been so weird/scared to tell people?

Maybe it's because it was so easy for us. We decided we were going to start trying in Belize, and in Belize it happened! Maybe it's because I know a lot of people who have had miscarriages lately and so part of me thinks, it was so easy, it must be too good to be true, look at all these other people I know who are struggling to get pregnant, it's almost not fair. Maybe it's because I know like a billion other people who are pregnant right now and I feel like I am just another girl who got pregnant. Basically every girl at my old work is pregnant or had gotten pregnant this year. It seems like every day on facebook someone else I know is announcing that they are pregnant, and I don't want to steal anyone's thunder and be like oh me too, I'm pregnant too, "look at me, look at me." (Bonus if you know what movie that quote is from) I really am excited about this pregnancy, don't get me wrong, I am just being weird about it.

I really want a girl, we will find out in a month! My ultrasound is scheduled for May 4th, so stay posted then and hopefully we will be able to find out what the sex is at the ultrasound. I already have all kinds of cute ideas for little Lucy's room, or Lucia as Steve wants her to be, but I will call her Lucy. Man I really want a girl. Either way though, boy or girl, the room is going to involve cute owls and a tree on the wall. The girls room will be a little more shabby chic antique looking and the boys room will be bright colors, but both with owls, birds, foxes, deer, just kind of foresty, I am so excited. We are hoping we will have a house by then. Oh did I forget to mention, my due date is September 24th, or should I say the baby's due date, though I guess I am "due" to go into labor around then. With Simon I had to have an emergency c-section, with this one I am going to try to do a vaginal birth after Cesarean, or VBAC. So hooray for being super huge pregnant through all of the summer, I can't wait! (little sarcasm there) At least I am only working part-time so I plan on taking Simon to the lake a lot this summer and plopping my by then very pregnant self into the very cold waters of Lake Tahoe. So yeah, I'm pregnant!

Mini cheesecakes- Oreo Cookies 'N Cream

So I decided I wanted to make cheesecake and found this post of a recipe from Martha Stewart. But I didn't have sour cream, so I searched for other cupcake cheesecakes, and found these terrific recipes for mini cupcakes.
But they weren't quite what I wanted, so I combined them and made my own recipe. This is what I came up with:

Kari's Oreo Cookies N' Cream Mini Cheesecakes

Ingredients:

2 8 oz packages of cream cheese room temperature (I actually used Neufchatel because it is 1/3 the fat and tastes just as good)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp lemon juice
12 oreos smashed up (I put them in a sandwich bag and beat them with a Lincoln Log)
1/2 cup? chocolate chips (I didn't actually measure, I just dumped the rest of the ones from my almost bag into the bowl
18 whole oreos for cheesecake bottoms


1. Using hand mixer on medium-high speed mix cream cheese and sugar
2. Add eggs, vanilla and lemon juice- mix some more.
3. Stir in crushed oreos and chocolate chips. (The recipes all specified stirring them in by hand, but honestly, I used my mixer and it turned out fine, just don't tell the recipe people

4.*This is the point when I preheat the oven to 275 degrees because I am a little slow, if you are amazing fast you can do it at the beginning, but I am so slow it preheats and then I am normally still mixing for like 10 minutes after it's hot!
5. Put cupcake liners in muffin pan.
6. Place a whole oreo (filling and all) into the cupcake liner, center if possible.
7. Add cream cheese mixture on top of the oreos- I used an ice cream scoop and it worked perfectly, no drips even, and one scoop was the perfect size to fill each cupcake! Go ahead and fill them almost to the top, the cheesecake actually settles a little while cooking, so it's not going to overflow if you go to the top.

8.Put your pan in the oven, wait about 20 minutes until the filling has set and is no longer jiggly, then remove.

9. Put in fridge for 3-4 hours trust me on this one- you want them to be chilled before you eat them or they DO NOT taste as good!
10. ENJOY!

If you look at that last picture you can see the row in the middle is a lighter color- those were my first batch in the oven that I cooked on 275 for 22 minutes- Different recipes gave different times- the browner ones were done on 375, unfortunately I just found out I burnt the bottoms of these ones, so you could go for the middle and take the advice of the recipe that said 325 for 20 minutes. I just tasted the first batch ones- the pasty whites at 275, and they taste delicious and the middle is a little more moist and gooey- this one is just a matter of preference but I will stick with the 275 when I make them again, that Martha really knows what she is talking about!

One of the recipes also suggested keeping the cheesecakes in the pan while they cooled and then keep them in there to chill, I took mine out so I could use my pan again- I think the main benefits to keeping them in the pan is so they hold their shape slightly better and so you can cover them if you want- important if you need to clean your fridge- but if your fridge is funky-smell free, then covering them shouldn't be necessary.

Video Games

Me and Steve both have a problem. We are video game addicts. Last night I stayed up with him until 4 a.m. playing video games. What is wrong with me? He has to stay up all night to stay on his same schedule on his days off because he work nights. It was really fun to keep him company, and the game we were playing was really fun- Borderlands- but man am I tired today! Steve was so nice, when Simon woke up this morning he was still up and he let me sleep in until noon and he hung out with Simon. What a nice break!
I have the best husband. We have so much fun together, he is my best friend! I wasn't sure how much I would like his new schedule, but I am liking it pretty well. It is nice because we will lay down in bed together for an hour or two so he can take a quick nap before he goes into work, but we end up just laying in bed talking the whole time. I feel like we talk a lot more now. I think before we would text all day long, but since we are on opposite schedules we can't text each other all the time anymore. I really enjoy our "pillow talk" every night.
I just put more pictures from Belize up on facebook- one of these days I should blog about that trip before I forget about everything.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today I am feeling very un-Valentiney. It may be because I am sick with an upper respiratory infection and ear infection. It may be because I haven't had a chance to go shopping for a present for my Valentine (been potty training Simon since Friday and I am a procrastinator so that is when I would have started shopping). It may be because I only saw my Valentine for about 20 minutes today- but he did bring me really pretty roses! It may be because I am not even wearing pink or red. It may be because I didn't decorate my house for Valentine's Day- not a single heart hanging anywhere.
So with that last statement typed, I just decided I will have to cut out some hearts and stuff and hang them up. Me and my Valentine are going to celebrate on Wednesday, so I figure I have a good two days to get really decorated and buy him a present- but I already know what I want to get him and have for a while, so that counts for something right!?
Although I am feeling un-Valentiney, I am very grateful for my husband today. I am so grateful that was able to marry such an amazing man, and then be sealed to him for time and eternity. He is stuck with me forever and I wouldn't have it any other way! In the year we were married before we were sealed I was always so scared that something would happen and one of us would tragically die before we were sealed, I must say that once we went to the temple, I was so relieved. Not to say it wouldn't really suck if one of us died, but now I have the comfort and knowledge that if that did happen, we would only be seperated for a little while and then we would be together forever after this life. What a comfort to be sealed in the House of the Lord.
I am grateful to be married to such an amazing man. He has sacrificed a lot for our family and has had to deal with a lot of stress from school and working and internships, and having a kid before we were planning on it, and all kinds of other stuff, but through it all and all the stress, he has always been good to me, and to our son, and for that I am grateful.
Last night as we were laying in bed for an hour before Steve had to leave for work we got a text message from a friend whose spouse had left them. It was so sad. Almost all of the couples that were at our wedding are now divorced, including some of our LDS friends. And this latest one is a dear friend who was sealed in the temple. It is so sad for me to see people not take that covenant seriously. How can you promise to love someone and be with them forever, and then after a year of marriage leave them. Does marriage mean anything to people anymore? Do people not realize what they are signing up for or something? Are their expectations not realistic? I am also grateful that one of the classes I took at BYU was Preparation for Marriage, it may seem cheesy, but that class was one of the best I ever took. It makes you realize what to expect from yourself, your spouse, and the whole institution of marriage. It was fantastic.
So Happy Valentine's Day everyone and Happy Valentine's to my husband (even though I am going to pretend Valentine's Day isn't until Wednesday for him so I feel like a better wife). I did buy him a really cute gift bag already to put his present in, it has a robot on it holding a heart- so cute!
P.S.- I was going to put a couple of cute pictures of Steve and I in here too, but my computer is having some issues accessing my libraries right now. :(

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I know I am a little late on this, but New Year's Eve was spent sleeping in the San Francisco Airport. (We did get to see some fireworks though!)And as many of you know, the next two weeks were spent in Belize having an awesome time! (Pictures going on facebook as I type- but only the first batch so far.) So I must say I am looking forward to this year more than any year I have recently. I really feel like things are finally coming together for Steve and I as individuals and as a family. We have a lot of really big things going on this year and this month already! I am just so excited for all of these changes and looking forward to all that the year has in store.
Some of the main things I am excited for this year (in no particular order)
1. We finally went on a trip outside of the country!
2. Steve is a nurse and started at the VA (technically he still has to take the NCLEX)
3. I no longer work at Ashley Furniture.
4. I get to be a stay-at-home mom!
5. I am starting a part-time job at a new store called Graples Home Decor.
6. We are trying to expand the size of our family.
7. We have the potential to start looking for a house later this year.
8. Steve will be home every night for dinner and home from work in time to have breakfast with us!
9. We get to go "home" this summer for my cousins wedding and take Simon to the property.
10. I get to stay home with Simon. I know I said that already, but I am looking forwward to spending so much time with my super sweet Simon-son!
That's all for now, gotta go run some errands.